Sunday, January 07, 2007

Jesus will never take you back

How could He? You haven't gone anywhere!

1 Thess 5:23-24Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.

Phil 1:6...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Gal 2:20-21I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

Gal 3:1-3You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

If you have believed in the name of Jesus, but yet you may have thought that you had gone "away" from Him because you hadn't been putting any effort into living the Christian life, or you had done things that you know aren't "faithful" to Him, please digest those verses (and of course there are many more). Yes, we want to be faithful to Him, but our salvation isn't dependent upon our faithfulness to Him. It's fully dependent upon His faithfulness to us, and He always remains faithful to us! In our minds, we may sometimes feel we have strayed, even in some major ways, but if our trust is in His righteousness and not our own, then we have never gone anywhere!

At that first moment of belief, He joined Himself with us. Our spirits were literally changed into new creations and we became His workmanship. The new creation that we are can never be separated from Him. We are literally, spiritually, inseparable from Him. Sometimes our thoughts, words and actions don't line up with that union that we have with Him, but that doesn't mean He's "unjoined" Himself from us. If our thoughts, words and actions ever meant that we went away from Him, then we'd be going away from Him and coming back to Him and going away from Him and coming back to Him and going away from Him and coming back to Him all the time! It would mean that the new creation that we are would change back into that old man and then change back to a new creation and back and forth and so on and so on, all the time.

But He has never left us and He has never forsaken us. He has joined Himself with us. We were crucified with Him, buried with Him, and we rose again with Him.

Rom 6:5-7For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.

We (our "old man") have died, one time and one time only, and the body of sin has been done away with, one time and one time only. We are no longer slaves to sin, since we have died. We are to reckon ourselves (acknowledge that it is truly a fact) to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 6:11).

Why then, do we still sin? We are dead to it and we are to reckon that as a fact, so why do we still sin? Why is it that "the good that I will to do, I do not do, but the evil I will not to do, that I practice?" (Rom 6:19). The question is answered in both verses 17 and 21.

Rom 7:17, 20But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me... Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

It is no longer I who do it. Remember... I have died... and I reckon that as a fact! So when I sin, it isn't ME. It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. While I used to be inseparable from my sin, I have now died to it, and I've been raised with Christ into a new creation. Sin dwells in me, in this corruptible body, but that sin is not me, nor does it represent me. I will leave this corruptible body someday, and put on an incorruptible one!

All that to say this: No matter what deeds you've done in the flesh, your spirit has remained one with Him, in tact, and has been and always will be dead to sin. You have never left Jesus, so He can never take you back!

If there has been sin in your life, perhaps an abundance of sin, you don't have to come back to Jesus. Simply acknowledge that you already are dead to sin, but you've been allowing the sin that dwells in you to govern your actions. But the sin you do isn't you. You don't have to beg Jesus to take you back! He has remained faithful to you, He has remained joined with you, even if you have felt millions of miles apart. Your actions haven't broken that union. Your actions can't break that union! Your actions didn't make the union happen in the first place. It was His workmanship and it will always be His workmanship. Knowing who you are in Him - the New Creation, blameless, justified, righteous, holy - through no effort of your own, makes all the difference in how you live your life. We live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us!

Remember this as well, when you see sinful actions in the lives of your brothers and sisters in Christ. You so much want to focus on their behavior. But be gentle, be loving and be patient... and put the focus on who they are in Christ, not their sin. A focus on sin doesn't overcome the sin that dwells in us! A focus on the reality of who we are, a spirit that is in unbreakable union with Christ, is the only way to overcome and live in victory!

I don't mind at all! I'm all about the body encouraging one another and I'm happy this post has played a part in lifting you up. In fact, I wrote this almost 2 years ago and I ended up re-reading it today and I was lifted up as well! The scriptures here, and the truth of who we've become in Christ, really encouraged me. I believe we need continuous reminders and re-reminders of the truth in order to get established in it and to grow in grace.